Is one word enough to shape your entire year—or is there a better way to show up with purpose in 2026?

In this insightful New Year’s episode, Michael explores the popular practice of choosing a single “word of the year” and why it may be too limiting for the complexity of real life. Through personal reflection, mindfulness principles, and a touch of humor, he offers a more compassionate, grounded alternative that helps you return to center—again and again—as life unfolds unpredictably.

1. Learn the science behind why "one word" works—and where it falls short.
2. Discover how to choose a grounding phrase, question, or mantra instead of a fixed resolution.
3. Reframe the New Year with a practice that supports growth, grace, and real-world resilience.

Press play to explore a more flexible, human-centered way to navigate the ups and downs of 2026—one mindful return at a time.

They're one word for the year. They might be even asking you, what's your word? Do you have a word? What's your word that's gonna frame out your whole year? And this has become a common practice over the last maybe 10 to 20 years, I guess I've done it. I don't currently do it in the same way today. And that's what I want to talk to you today about.

Because lately, or actually over the last maybe five or six years, I have found that picking just one word, and if you do this practice right now and it works for you, I love that it works for you. So I'm not throwing any shade on your practice. This episode is about opening up and practicing addition, if you will.

How can we make this practice? Even better to help us through all the different moments that we'll share in the new year. But I felt that just picking one word is too restrictive for a whole year. A whole year. That will go incredibly fast and will be filled with a whole bunch of different moments. And I also think it's become a little performative, maybe a little gimmicky, but that's me again.

If you feel different, that's totally cool. So today I wanna explore how this idea of picking one word actually caught on and what does the science say about it, and how might we frame the year ahead a bit differently in a way that's more compassionate, that has more versatility, if you will. Aligned with how us humans actually grow.

Why don't we take one word that frames out the full year going forward? So instead of a long list of New Year's resolutions that we don't seem to keep, maybe we'll just pick a word, something simple, something aspirational, something that could be remembered When life inevitably gets loud and messy and chaotic, we can always come back to this.

One word. Many people found comfort in its simplicity, so it caught on, it became a thing. And now current day, as I mentioned up front, your feed will be people proclaiming what their word is. But over time, as this practice has become more popular, and also this happens with a lot of the self-help world.

It drifts, it starts to become a bit again, in my opinion, too. Performative people are picking just the right word to put out there. Uh, people are looking, searching for the right word. It's a word that they may not have ever known existed, but they're like, oh, wow, that's a different word. I'll put that out there to show how unique I am.

This is how the practice starts to break down a bit, in my opinion. Again, if it's working for you, I think it's awesome. Let me share a bit with you more so the whole science of one word makes sense. Psychologists say that having a single word can prime your attention. If your word happens to be courage, that was my word one year.

One year, it was surrender your mind begins to notice moments when courage is possible. Your word could be ease. So you might recognize opportunities to soften, to bring ease and stillness and stress less into your life. I think those are all amazing. It's a bit like mindfulness. It's a bit like you go where your eyes go, which was the title of my TEDx talk.

We pay attention to what we focus in on. So all of this makes sense. I think it can be wonderfully used. The word can also be aspirational. It can be about who we wish to become. It can align to that. So it's a small little shift in identity. And remembering this word can help us in the moments where we happen to go back to our habitual patterns and remember, oh, we have this word.

Let me shift, let me take. A different action and another benefit, and this is what the science says, is that it has a low cognitive load. So it doesn't need a whole bunch of brain power. And our brain loves that. 'cause there's a lot to remember. So a quick, simple word that's easy peasy lemon squeezy. So choosing one word, if that happens to be your jam.

Isn't bad science, it's just not, again, in my opinion, the whole story, and that's where we get into the gimmick nature of the word, because life is not one dimensional. You might know after listening to this podcast, I'm big fan of the poet Rumi and the poem, the Guest house sits by my desk. It helps me remember that life is like a guest house and we're gonna get a new arrival every day.

And sometimes those arrivals are joyous and sometimes they're quite challenging. We're gonna get a whole bunch of different guests, and some guests, like when the in-laws visit are good for about 72 hours. That's what they have in common with fish from what I hear. It gets stale after a while, but that's life.

And life is more than just one dimensional. I think it's hard to sum up the whole year with just one word, and the word we think of on say January 2nd may not be the word that's really needed in March or in September or next Tuesday. And choosing. I'm doing air quotes right now. The perfect word because it looks so inspiring on Instagram.

Doesn't do much for our nervous systems when the poop hits the fan, if you will. Another issue that I have with the whole one word phenomenon is that many people pick a word but never translate it into behavior. This is key because our behavior creates our ripple effect. Our behavior basically fuels the energy we show up with.

That's how we create the change that we wish to see in the world. They have insight, yes, because they have this word, but it's not part of a practice. It's not embedded or embodied into a way of living. So it has insight, but insight without practice is decoration. Again, decorations can be really good. It can look wickedly pretty, but it may not be as impactful as it could be.

So here's what you can do instead. Instead of choosing one word to live up to, I'd like you to think about choosing a place to return to. There's a difference, of course, because both you and I know that. This year, like last year will be bananas. Personally, I think it's gonna be more stressful because the US is having an election, so the waves of the ocean that keep coming, that we've learned how to surf over the last few years, I think they're gonna get bigger and they may, they might be more frequent.

So we'll have moments when we fall down, when we drift, we're gonna go off center, no doubt about it. Because we're human and we'll get overwhelmed, we'll get distracted, we'll get tired or frustrated. And that's not failure. That doesn't mean that we're less than. It means that, hey, we're perfectly imperfect humans.

So as we start the year, the question to ask may not be, what word can I align to for the whole year, but rather. Where do I return when I do go astray? When I do drift? And it could be a mantra or a phrase like, slow is smooth and smooth is fast, or come back to the body. Lead with care. It could be a question.

You can stay curious with yourself. What's being asked of me right now? That's a good question to ask, especially when we're feeling things. Or what would enough look like today when we're feeling overwhelmed or we don't know where to begin? These approaches don't box you in. You're not married to one particular word for the whole year.

So you have some versatility, some agility or flexibility because life will ask you to be just that during this year. So they are. In essence, a way to come back home. Some will say you can always come back to your breath. If that doesn't feel safe to do so, we can find another way to come back to remember, to feel grounded in our moments and create some space, and in that space we can reflect on, okay, right now how do I wish to show up?

What makes the most sense? If you've already selected a word for the year, I think that's awesome sauce. Absolutely fantastic. I'll invite you to think about adding these approaches so you can fully live into the word you've chosen. And if you haven't yet picked a word, you might wish to take this approach and play with it and see if you can make it your own, because this coming year will not be shaped by.

So life will not be shaped by what we choose today. It'll be shaped by how many times you notice you drift away from your intentions, and that is really a beautiful way of thinking about mindfulness. Each time our mind wanders and we notice and we come back to either open awareness or our breath or our body, that is an act of mindfulness.

We remember to come back and we remember to come back compassionately to help us keep pedaling. That's the real practice. That's how we become whole. Again, one return at a time. So try this out and let me know if it works for you and if it doesn't, you can also let me know that as well. I have thick skin as always.

Thanks for being here. Thank you for being part of our community. And if you haven't yet joined us over on Substack, where I do live practices throughout the week, plus some additional teaching. You can join us there and you can also sign up for the free text messages. I send a couple times each week to keep you motivated and inspired to keep you pedaling, if you will.

Creating those beautiful ripples. You can text hold again to 8 6 6 6 1 2 4 6 0 4 and I'll set you up.